Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : How Do I set up Servers to be used as nameservers and how many?

[netlink]

I have been hosting with a few different dedicated server companies (server matrix, c i host, and a few others). I am now looking into moving everything into 1 central place and going to be using co-location with my own gear. How do I set up a server to be used JUST as a "name server?" Do most hosting companies have sepearate name servers or do the just use portions of their existing servers to run the name servers off of? Also I am thinking of setting up 2 seperate name server - servers. Any tutorials? Comments?

[NyteOwl]

Two seperate physical nameservers on different IP network segments is the ideal for redundancy, and to conform the the RFC spec. However many hosts, especially smaller ones run their nameservers, at least the main one, on their main site server. This conserves expensive hardware costs at the sacrifice of some redundancy. You can also get extra DNS redundancy by using a service like www.zoneedit.com for secondary DNS.

There a literally hundreds of DNS tutorials around the net, probably the best being the DNS and Bind material from O'Reilly.

[netlink]

Are there any tutorials on WHT? I have no idea what OS to install or even where to start. Thank you for your assistance.

[wizo]

Well there are some free NS software out there that I know some really large hosting companies use. The one that I am familar with is BIND. The BIND DNS Server is used on the vast majority of name serving machines on the Internet, providing a robust and stable architecture on top of which an organization's naming architecture can be built. However NiteOwl is right your best bet is two static IPs obviously for both name servers(prim and second). Just a little food for thought..

Adam

[apex13]

If you have only one machine and no backup mx, it is virtually pointless to go thru the effort of setting up 2ndary DNS.

[netlink]

Originally Posted by apex13

If you have only one machine and no backup mx, it is virtually pointless to go thru the effort of setting up 2ndary DNS.

Interesting point. I never thought of that. Where might I find info on setting up a backup mx. We have more than 1 server.

[DigitalN]

Which OS are you running and do they already have mail and dns service on them?

All you need do is install bind and configure the master and slave zones into named.conf on each server (If you use bind). When you update a zone on the master, it will update the secondary. You may need to write scripts to add zones if you use a control panel and have users add their own zones etc - Does your control panel (If you have one) have support for master/slave dns on different machines?

Secondary mx , all you need is 2 mail servers, the primary is where the mail accounts are setup I assume already, then all you need do is add a secondary MX record for each domain that wants to use the secondary service and add the domain name into a mail configuration file on the secondary mail server. Adding the ability to relay mail for the domain is all that you need to do, /etc/relayhosts /etc/secondarymx or similar, depending on what you are running, simply needs the domains that use secondary mx records adding to it.

Having 1 machine dedicated as a backup mx and secondary dns would be sufficient, but depends upon your budget as to how many servers you want and how much redundancy you want to add.

[NyteOwl]

You might have a look at http://www.zoneedit.com . They offer DNS and mail services for reasonable rates (starting at free). Another popular option for DNS is http://www.easydns.com.

[apex13]

Originally Posted by netlink

Interesting point. I never thought of that. Where might I find info on setting up a backup mx. We have more than 1 server.

Depends what MTA you use but all you do is set a 2nd machine up to QUEUE mail (not ACCEPT mail--not the difference) as backup MX for your domains. Then you add another MX entry in your dns with a higher MX preference. When a server attempts to deliver mail for your domains, it will try every MX entry for the domain beginning with the one that has the lowest MX preference and will continue on up until it is able to deliver the message to one of the servers listed.

[jbw]

Originally Posted by apex13

If you have only one machine and no backup mx, it is virtually pointless to go thru the effort of setting up 2ndary DNS.

Well not really true, as I have found dns being down will cause hicups in outgoing mail still in queues, and incoming mail will often bounce instead of being defered for later deliver if no NS records can be found.

[apex13]

Originally Posted by jbw

Well not really true, as I have found dns being down will cause hicups in outgoing mail still in queues, and incoming mail will often bounce instead of being defered for later deliver if no NS records can be found.

Incorrectly designed mail server software is not my problem

[jbw]

Originally Posted by apex13

Incorrectly designed mail server software is not my problem

It is when it causes mail you want sent or received to fail, and could have been prevented by having a secondary dns. Also, how is it incorrectly designed? The specs say have redundent dns, the server can't find a dns record for where to send the email, what should it do???

Seems the mail server designers can just as validly say , incorretly hosted domains are not their problem.
Probably more validly.

[Real-Hosts]

For a personal server I run, not bothered about uptime or redundancy... Two IPs, Two NS, One Server.. Joy.